Stories From My Travels

Look. I get it. I've been to DisneyWorld A LOT. Naturally, people ask me why? Why go to the same place over and over again? Doesn't it  get boring? Are't you too old for Disney? Don't you want to see the world? And the truth is...I do! I've always had a desire to travel and the older I get, the more I want to see Goblin Valley in Utah, the Inca Trail in Peru and the Winter Palace in St Petersburg. But when my brother calls me up and says "The ENTIRE family are going to DisneyWorld, including mum and dad, me and Giovanna and your three nephews...wanna come and make some memories?"...how could I possibly say no?!

However, I have been lucky enough to travel quite a lot in my lifetime! Many trips have been for work that I've been taken on by companies, some for pleasure and some were quite pricey school trips that thankfully my earnings from Mary Poppins as a kid covered when my parents savings wouldn't stretch that far. So, considering my social media is currently pretty Disney-fied I'm going to try and counter balance that with a few stories from my travels to other places around the world.

(I do just want to state before I get into these stories that I'm aware of just how lucky and privileged I am to have travelled so much in my life whether it's through work or pleasure. That is not lost on me at all I am so grateful for all the memories I've made over the years!)

San Fransisco

When I was fourteen, camera phones were relatively new and I'm pretty sure I was still battling with a Nokia that could barely send a text in the right direction let alone access the internet and it certainly couldn't take photos. So, I don't really have any photos from this trip which makes me truly sad as the memory of it never ceases to make me smile. The main bulk of the trip was to be spent skiing in Lake Tahoe. My classmates came from incredibly wealthy families and many of them had been skiing since they were able to stand up on their own however, this was my first time. Before, I got in the snow and had to deal with the terror of completely embarrassing myself, we stopped for a night in San Fransisco to visit Alcatraz. It remains to be one of the most fascinating places I've ever visited. The incredibly graphic audio tour had me jumping out of my skin around every corner and as I walked over stone floors peppered with bullet marks, I felt my stomach twist. The one thing I found especially chilling were painted silhouettes of the prison kitchen knives on the wall where they hung so they could easily see when one of the inmates had managed to steal one. I was full of it on the boat ride back to the city and started writing stories about the inmates in my notebook. However, something that always sticks in my mind about that trip was the hotel we stayed in for that one night in San Fransisco. It was rickety and rough and only one person and their case could fit in the elevator at a time. It took about three people to heave the metal grate shut before it juddered into life. When I got to my room, which I was sharing with my best friend, Hannah, I opened the window to see the view and my immature fourteen year old self howled with laughter when she saw that our sweet teachers had managed to book us into a hotel right opposite an adult cinema. A big pair of pink neon legs flickered up and down alongside three giant X's. Our teachers were quite reluctant to admit their mistake and not one of us let them live it down for the entire trip. 

In the airport on the way home! I'm the little floating head at the back!

Florence

When studying for my art GCSE, we were taken to Florence and Sienna. I went to a GDST  School (Girls' Day School Trust) and I have no idea what possessed our teachers to think it would be a great idea to pair up with our brother school and send us all on the trip together. Sixteen girls and six boys signed up for the trip and it was utter chaos. I was one of two year ten's on the trip so Nicole and I stuck together and made friends with a year eleven girl, Yasmin, and a year eleven guy, Chris, and the four of us became a solid unit. We had in jokes and nicknames...and I had a crush the size of Italy. I fancied our adopted boy oh, so much. Late one evening we visited an art museum in which you could view Botticelli's  The Birth of Venus. Chris and I were sat sketching and talking and giggling and hadn't noticed that the room had emptied and the hour we'd been allowed to get three sketches done was almost up. Mid-conversation...all the lights in the gallery went off and we went into panic mode. We skid out into the dark hallway and only little nightlights along the corridor shone. There was not a soul in sight. We walked around for what felt like forever and we were sure we'd covered the entire museum. Suddenly, someone was behind us yelling in Italian and we were ushered out a door onto the street. It certainly wasn't the way we had come into the museum and no one from our trip was around so it didn't seem like it was the way everyone else had exited either. Finally, we managed to get enough signal to receive a call from Nicole telling us where everyone was. When we arrived, Chris endured a lot of ribbing from his fellow boys and even his teacher wasn't impressed. 
'The next time you want to go on a moonlit stroll with your new girlfriend you tell me first!'
Cut to eight years later and I'm drunk in a casino in Cardiff on the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang tour coming back from the toilets when I pass Chris in the hallway. 
'Oh my god...' I say, not even sure if it's really him or if my squiffy brain is playing tricks on me. Turns out, it was Chris and he was dating our sound guy and had come to watch the show! Life's so funny, innit?!

LA

When I was sixteen, I left college and was put on retainer at Universal Records. I had helped write a musical with a bunch of talented people and we would spend the next few years pitching it to directors, producers and TV/film companies and then workshopping the script and songs over and over again.(It's still in the works. I'm hoping it sees the light of day in the future...!) Receiving my first pay check as a working adult was such an exciting thing and was made even more exciting when my brother said he was thinking about flying to LA to see John Williams at the Hollywood Bowl...and I actually had the money to go with him? We dreamed up the idea on the Wednesday, booked to go on Thursday and Tom, Giovanna, Tom's manager Fletch and I flew to LA on the Friday. John Williams blew our socks off on the Saturday and we came back home on the Sunday. My brother moved out when I was eleven years old and even though I still saw him all the time, I really missed him living at home during my teen years. Any brother/sister quality time still means the world to me even now and I'll always look back on that trip with huge fondness. 

I went to LA twice more after that, both for business trips on the same musical and for a little longer than just a weekend! When I was eighteen, we flew out there but this time my brother wasn't able to come with us and I always felt a little lost on big trips like that without him there. I was at a point in my life where I was unsure of how to make my voice heard and when Tom was there I could always speak to him privately. I muddled through and learnt a few valuable lessons in speaking up and not letting myself go unnoticed and on the final day of the trip, I decided to brave it and took a little solo stroll down Sunset Boulevard. I quickly stumbled across a bookshop called Book Soup in which I spent far too much time and far too much money. I bought too many books to fit in the little hand luggage case I'd brought with me so I had to check my case on the way home and buy a rucksack to use as carry on. I have no regrets and for anyone looking for a super awesome book shop in LA, I highly recommend Book Soup. 

Dubai

I briefly touched on my time in Dubai and mentioned that I didn't have the best tip but there were a few particularly memorable moments out there. We were invited as 'the case of Les Mis' to Ferrari World. As someone not hugely into cars or racing, I went a little dubious and it turned out to be the best outing of the trip for me, personally. It has two world record holding rollercoasters with Formula Rossa being the fastest rollercoaster in the world at 139mph and Flying Aces having the tallest inverted loop. The latter being my all time favourite rollercoaster that I've ever had the thrill to ride. 

There were other afternoons we spent by the pool that quickly turned into evenings and we realised we'd talked the day away whilst bobbing in the warm pool shaded by palm trees. 

While the trip may not have been ideal, I met some seriously corking people on that job. Natasha Veselinovic remains to this day to be one of my favourite humans and I'm gutted that she's now back in Australia. Tash, wifey, if you're reading this, I miss you and I'm sending you love from halfway across the world!!! 

In between all these little memory trinkets, I've also had the luck and pleasure of visiting Venice, Paris, Malta, Les Tamaris, Singapore, New York, Lake Tahoe, Finland, Tunisia, Corfu, Tenerife, Gran Canaria, La Gomera, Belgium and Ireland. DisneyWorld, Florida might be a firm favourite but my travelling days are far from over!